


Afterstuck

by BlueEyedJared



Series: Afterstuck [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Insomnia, Lost - Freeform, Self-Acceptance, Self-Denial, Self-Discovery, afterstuck, just my take on what john would do/react in the new world, not really a sadstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 14:54:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7110073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueEyedJared/pseuds/BlueEyedJared
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Egbert has just beat the game and entered the new world he and all of his friends created together. The world is not what he had expected however and he has trouble getting acquainted with the new world. Completely dissatisfied and eventually left all alone he spends the next few years of his life on his own trying to distract himself, but that only makes it worse. He is left to his own thoughts for far too long and is faced with his own trials of recovery of the scars the game left behind with no intention of contacting anyone.</p><p>In this new world John must learn, grow, and understand the (albeit extreme) changes in life and understand that things will never be the same, and neither might not he.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Afterstuck

**Author's Note:**

> Forewarning, this mentions and shows signs of depression, anxiety, isolation and many other things. If you are easily triggered please do not read, although this story is not meant to be a sadstuck it is still fairly heavy. You have been warned.
> 
> Those of you still here I hope you enjoy this sudden drabble no matter how shitty it is. If you see any errors comment them down below and I'll fic them. I made this from 11:00pm to now....1:09 am (I have school today oh god) so I no doubt made a dew mistakes and maybe even missed some when I read over it again and fixed a few things.
> 
> Edit 6/26/16: This takes place after the first part of afterstuck.

_Home._

     You don’t think you’ll ever be able to relate to that word again. In all honesty you always thought when you finished this game, despite creating another universe- you had been silently hoping you’d be living in your universe, not this made up one. Of course, that doesn’t mean you don’t like this world, you do, it just doesn’t feel right.

     You’d actually just survived the end of the universe and watched the birth of a new one, it was beautiful, you’d admit it would have made you cry if the game hadn’t hardened you up so much. You’re the same person of course, John Egbert, 16, born in Washington state on April 13th, son, (no, brother?) of Dad Egbert who is more or less still with you even through that entire game.

     We all have, in a sense, stayed with our guardians, you had to share though, which you didn’t mind if it weren’t for the fact that it made your familial relationship just that much more complex than before, you weren’t sure what you were anymore at this point and honestly you don’t even know if you care anymore.

     Everyone had taken residence in Can Town, it was nice, the chess people were kind and had this weird but easy to understand language that we grew accustomed to easily, to be honest I always just assumed they were mute up to this point in time considering I’ve never actually heard them, always thought everyone else was just bullshitting me and on the edge.

     Dave had taught Jake and Dirk how to play soccer, or well, a version of it, I’m honestly surprised I hadn’t thought of this before him, or that I had no part in it, which everyone was more or less surprised about. They joked about Dave taking my title as a master prankster but I scoffed and told them he could never beat me at my own game, and he didn’t, Jade did, and man did that hurt my pride.

 

     It’s been a couple months, eight to be specific, I haven’t spent much time with the group the last four months, we all kind of split up into smaller groups to explore the world, or they did at least.

     Jake, Dirk, and Jane had decided to travel out to find adventure and solve mysteries and learn about how this world worked. Jade, Roxy, Dave, and Karkat had all went off to find new species and ancient ruins, in a sense they were also after adventure, everyone was, I was surprised Dirk and Dave had parted ways after only four months of getting to know each other, but I guess considering their background it made sense why it didn’t faze them to be apart for long periods of time even after getting to know each other fairly well.

     Rose, Kanaya, Tavros, and Vriska had all went around looking for other civilizations, I didn’t know much more than that about them. Gamzee, Equius, and Nepeta, stayed behind to interact with the chess people who took care of each of their separate needs and gave them therapy to help deal with their fissure, despite saying they were alright with what happened, it’s quite obvious they weren’t. Gamzee was also taken off ‘drugs’ and being made to go sober and guided to a more pacifist and mentally stable person, he’s doing extremely well seven months later, he lets out his urges in healthier ways such as drawing, dummies, singing, and sometimes even screaming which sometimes scares me because his scream is fucking terrifying especially when it happens randomly.

     Aradia, Sollux, Eridan and Feferi are each researching the ocean life of this world, Eridan and Feferi doing most of the underwater exploring, and Aradia and Sollux studying whatever the two found, sometimes visiting the town to show and/or tell us of any updates in their discoveries, they had been accumulating a few books full of information of the things they’d studied, apparently there are mystical creatures in this world, or at least a large possibility of them existing from what they’ve seen. Their books were only accumulating and they’d need me to build them a new bookshelf soon enoug.

     To be honest, I’m pretty sure the only reason they are still frequently visiting Can Town is because they don’t have a place of their own over there and need to keep their things somewhere, although they have just camped over at wherever they chose to discover once in a while.

     I myself decided to stay behind, though I’m planning on leaving soon enough. I’ve busied myself with learning construction, a great distraction that keeps me busy and physically active at the same time. At first I was horrible but after reading a bunch of construction books and being taught by the constructors of Can Town I eventually learned enough to start building stuff on my own and not have it fall apart instantaneously after placing a book there.

     I started on building a house for myself, and secretly, for everyone else, if they ever decide to visit and want a place to stay that isn’t in the shape of a can. It isn’t easy and I’ve stopped on its progression on more than on occasion the past two months. It honestly feels like I’ll never finish this house which is preposterous because it’s only been two months but I’m impatient, but the urge to build something and call it mine is too overwhelming to not keep going no matter how discouraged I get.

     Sometimes, I don’t even do anything, I just sit on a part of the wooden wall that was sturdy enough to hold me up. I remember once it was raining, it wasn’t hard rain, but it still poured steadily. I was soaking wet and attempting to get the rain and wind to avoid that particular spot of land that I was building on. Right by a forest that had bushes of flowers to the right that glowed at night and clear grass to the left with a single tree standing outside the line of trees, I like that tree, it had a stone a few feet away from it, I liked to sit on it once in a while.

     Anyway, after we entered the game we all kind of started over with our powers, we still had them and were the same level of god tier, but there were new things we hadn’t realized we could do or went with our aspect. With mine I am able to control weather, albeit it’s very challenging, sometimes I can’t even do so much as open a spot in the clouds for sunlight, but that’s just how it was, everyone mastered the other part of their aspect in different speeds, some got it on the spot like Dave with his fire aspect (fucker almost burned off my eyebrows once) or Jane able to create new lifeforms (although she avoids it out of fear of creating something horrible, the only reason she found out she was able to do that is because she was imagining a kind of flower she would like to exist, I planted it nearby the house).

     Unfortunately, I have yet to actually be able to do any actual controlling of the weather as of yet especially if it’s not wind related, that day though it had really smacked me in the face how bad I was at it because despite my greatest efforts I’d been unable to stop the rain from destroying the wall I had built and was forced to start over. This was a week ago, and I have only just now returned to the sight to fix the damage, the wood had molded and was really soft, I got tired of working with wood though and brought some bricks from the town to build with instead along with some cement mix.

 

     It’s been a year now, the weather on this planet is strange, but interesting. I’d had a dream last night about the seasons in this world, they shifted. Every thousand years or so the world would decide to switch things up and switch the time in which the seasons arrive. It would happen over the course of ten years, every year over the course of those ten years the seasons would start a little later, so by the end of the ten years, say instead of having winter from December to February, it would be from February to June, then from June to September it would be spring, and from September to November it would be summer, then from November to February it’d be autumn.

     At first it was weird and all I could think was, what would be the point in that? But then I got to see what each of these switching seasons had in store, new rare vegetables would sprout up and the other ones we used to know would disappear until their original season exchange returned, different animals would sprout up that had been asleep and hidden that entire thousand years, and new civilizations, new people, new forms of people! It’s amazing! Unfortunately, I woke up from that dream too soon.

 

     Another year. I have made a lot of progress on the house, I’d asked for help from the constructors of Can Town whom I’d gotten very close to the past two years of my life here. They say it might be another year or so before it’s done but I can wait. To be honest I’m actually kind of dreading the day when I finish it, because then I won’t have anything to do anymore, or at least, anything I want and actually can do.

 

     Six months, I’ve started a garden, it’s a lot harder than Jade made it look, wish I could ask her for help, she must be having fun though, wherever she is.

 

     A year, I’m putting the tiling on the roof, it’s a pretty big house, three floors, an attic, and a secret basement I worked on whenever I was on my own. In three more days the house will be complete, that’s good.

 

     It’s complete, I’ve started building furniture, the carpenters had given me a few presents as a housewarming gift, nothing major, a few chairs, a small temporary guest bed, some wooden bowls and spoons, one had picked up a hobby in knitting and made me a quilt, it was the alpha and beta kids as zodiac signs, something I hadn’t known was a thing in this world and was actually pleasantly surprised by. I hugged all of them and gave my thanks, there was a small party held inside, I made a few meals, some troll dishes Aradia had taught me like zion, a stew consisting of zucchini, reijon (a sweet vegetable from her universe that also falls under the category of a fruit apparently), vegetable stock, and some purple beans that she couldn’t remember the name of but taste absolutely horrible if you don’t boil them in sugared water first, it was weird, but tasted good, fairly sweet but just a bit of salty from the stock. In this universe we were all (to my knowledge) vegans, no one ate meat and the animals roamed free unless otherwise choosing to stay under someone’s care.

     I made a few salads (of course) and some sandwiches that I’d actually made up on the spot and am thoroughly surprised by how good they taste and how well everyone else reacted to them.

 

     It’s been a week and I broke my sink, the plumbers came by and fixed it for me and I apologized thoroughly.

 

     Three and a half years in this world so far, I’ve made it this far, I want to go home.

 

     I’m hanging out with the only two groups who actually stayed behind (more or less), I hadn’t visited the town at all and had been curious about my whereabouts and when they heard about the new house I’d finished building with the constructors of the town they rushed over to see and hang out for a bit. I was thoroughly pleased with their presence, I hadn’t realized it before, but I actually really wanted some company, it’s been a while since I could hang out with anybody like this and I was more than eager to give them a tour of the house, avoiding the basement.

     “Damn John, so thith ith what you’ve been upto the past four years? Nice.” Sollux was standing in the middle of one of the many bedrooms this house held, a total of ten bedrooms in total, five on the second and third floors each, a bathroom on each floor (the first floor consisting of the biggest one that could fit up to five people if you really wanted to, the bathtub was huge, though it was the only one in the house, the other two were just showerheads.)

     We decided to start on the third floor because fuck it, why not? We’ll work our way down, it’s pretty obvious they were eager to see the rest of the floors though, what with the small glimpses they received of each.

     “Yup, I kind of wanted to get a place I could really call my own so I started this big project.” My voice is fairly deep after four years of growing up, kind of raspy though from my lack of sleep, I had unfortunately acquired insomnia at some point in time and lack the ability to sleep whenever, sometimes it’s not too bad though, it mostly just shows up when I stress too much, I went four days once of no sleep before finally passing out for a day, best sleep I’d ever gotten honestly. Right now though it wasn’t too bad, I could probably fall asleep if I made it rain a bit.

     “I have to say, you gave quite a few details for both humans and trolls alike, I’m very flattered you thought of us when you built this.” Aradia commented while staring up at a hook on the roof for cocoons, I felt slightly embarrassed by that, maybe I was getting a little too obsessed with this whole visitor thing.

     “Wwhere’s the furniture?” Eridan commented looking around the bedroom finding a desk and a chair I’d finished building recently but otherwise empty.

     “Oh, uh. I haven’t finished building it yet. Only my room has any real furniture and that was just brought over from my Can house.”

     “You’re building the furniture from scratch?” Feferi exclaimed.

     “Why don’t you jutht buy it? Or, well, trade for it?” Sollux asked, I shrugged.

     “I don’t wanna.” I led them down the rest of the five-bedroom hall after showing them the decent sized closet. The rooms are basically identical, save for my room which had a door that led straight into the bathroom next door just for pure convenience since I’ll be on my own for the next thousand years.

 

     “John, this floor is amazing! It has a-a-.” Feferi stuttered in excitement. stumbling into the room with her lack of a word.

     “Dance studio.” I inferred. I don’t know why I made this room, I’m probably never going to use it, but the others might like it, Feferi is absolutely in love with it, already twirling around to her own tune.

     I brought them to the next room. It consisted primarily of instruments and a large bookshelf in the wall full of sheet music and the like, I spent most of my time in here, playing my piano, especially on days where the rain is heavy and the wind blows hard, I play to the melody of the weather, I’ve composed quite a few new favorites recently that I keep in a lone cabinet off to the far right of the room, sometimes I play them even when it completely opposes the mood of the outside.

     “Sweet guitars.” Eridan pointed out as he walked over to where I kept my string instruments.

     “Thanks.”

     “Did you make those too?” Aradia asked while staring at some of the wind instruments, I didn’t touch those very often.

     “No, actually, these are actually some of the rare few I’ve actually bought.” I tapped on over to the piano and had a seat, scooting over when Aradia moved to sit next to me.

     “Would you mind playing something for us?” Feferi asked.

     “Oh, uh, sure.” I am admittedly a little excited to have an audience with me today. I’ve wanted to share my music on more than one occasion, but I’ve never had the courage to ask what with everyone being so busy and out of reach.

     I started playing something relatively relaxing. It was actually from a month back when I first started this little habit, the second piece, it was actually a gradual lighthearted song that made me smile after a relatively good day where I was able to do the simple things I struggle with, for example, I woke up around ten and made my bed this morning, that felt great.

     I’d made pancakes for breakfast and they tasted decent, improvement. I’d went outside and took a long walk around twelve, I left the house. I watered my plants around twelve forty, responsibility. I brought in the clothes I hung outside that I forgot about yesterday and they were okay, victory. I made lunch and ate it all, satisfaction.

     These were all small things that, if I told anyone else about it, they’d probably laugh at me and say they’re nothing special and call me weird, they motivated me. At the end of the day, I did something, that’s all that matters. The others were having small conversation while I was playing, I’d forgotten about them for a moment, completely immersed in my playing.

     “I got a call from Karkat rethently. Apparently they’re coming by to vithit and maybe even thettle down for a bit. He thays that they might arrive thomewhere between three dayth to a week.” I perked up inside.

     “Nice to know they’re doing well.” Aradia responded, she had a big smile on her face, not the one where she talks about bodies but rather a content one where she was just happy.

     “To be honest, I kind of missed them.” Feferi admitted and my heart strung, it’s been such a long time, I wonder if they- “even look the same, I mean, we all have more or less matured these past two sweeps.” Feferi voiced my thoughts.

     “Wwell, they can’t have changed that much. I mean, wwe still pretty much resemble wwhat wwe used to look like, just, wwell, older. Right, John?” Eridan looked at me and in the reflection of his glasses I saw myself.

     John Egbert, 21, born in Washington state on April 13th, relative of Dad Egbert who is more or less still with you even through that entire game. Except it’s not you, it’s someone else, a much older, much more mature, tired, lonely someone else who can never go back to how he used to be because all he knew was taken from him, and all he knows has been replaced, and he is absolutely terrified of it, so much so, that he tore himself away from it and locked himself up, refusing to acknowledge that change because all he wants, is to go back home and he never will because even if he goes back, he knows it will be different and it won’t be the home he used to have, it won’t be the same and he can never turn back into what he used to be.

     You are John Egbert, and you have no idea who you are, what you want, or how it’s going to be.

 

     That night you couldn’t sleep, the day went by fairly well, it was fun, but now you’re alone with nothing but your thoughts and the realization of where you are right now.

     You aren’t happy, you’re dissatisfied to say the least and you wonder if you’d still feel this way if you’d been transported back to your own world instead. Would you be happy? Would you feel complete? How would you and your friends react over there? Would you even talk anymore?

     You rolled over in bed. You don’t talk to anyone. You don’t know why but you just don’t. You are kind of soft-spoken now because of it, barely use your voice so it’s not that loud when you speak because of the lack of usage. You haven’t heard from the other groups in years. The only news you received from them was from Sollux just now. This makes you wonder if you were able to message them the whole time, then you realize, of course, you can, you’ve been able to the entire time, you just haven’t because you assumed you wouldn’t have any connection, but Sollux just disproved that, now you wonder if they’ve been attempting to message you these entire past four years and you just never bothered to check, too busy moping and theorizing and being depressed over everything. Now you feel stupid.

     You sit up and open your sylladex, it’s been a while, you haven’t opened this since the ending of the game, you don’t know why, it carries a lot of stuff you’ve forgotten about. Shaving cream and razors to last a lifetime, spare bunny parts from lil Sebastian, the bunny from Conair (you chuckled at that one, oh how you obsessed over those movies, you kind of want to watch them now, just for old times’ sake) and zillyhoo, oh god how can you miss something so much that you completely forgot about?

     The rest of the night was spent roaming through my sylladex and reliving past memories, a lot of them were really painful, not necessarily because of a death or a sour moment, but because they now held so much emotion for you and are helping you get some closure in some weird, strange, twisted way.

     Your old world is destroyed, it’s gone and you’ll never go back, but that’s okay, because you have this one, you made it, with everyone else, and it was sad and painful and it left you with so many scars and so many open wounds that you were afraid to let anyone near them, for fear of just having it be ripped open even more.

     You didn’t object when everyone decided to split up and explore the world, you didn’t even attempt to join a group or even go out on your own, you stayed behind. You didn’t go to a therapist like Gamzee, Equius, and Nepeta did, you just kept it to yourself. You didn’t even attempt to speak to anyone, not even Dad, the person you should be able to run to with anything without worry. Instead, you closed yourself off, you ran away and shut yourself out and refused to acknowledge your problems, and now, you’re alone in a house, going through old memories, and you think you might cry.

 

     The birds were chirping by the time I realized how late it was. There were tears streaming down my face from the entire night. I felt a bit better. I never considered myself much of a crier, didn’t even cry when my dad died, but last night I guess everything just hit me. I am completely exhausted and want nothing more than to go to sleep but despite that, I felt just a little bit better. I’m never speaking of this to anyone.

 

     I spent the entire day sleeping and woke up at night to the sound of rain. I hurried down the hall to the music room and started to play, at first it was absolutely horrible, just me hurriedly slamming my fingers on the keys, the wind slamming itself again the large window behind me, almost as if it were trying to tell me to stop, but I didn’t, instead I kept going and going, it was sad and deep in the beginning, rushed like my fingers were trying to run away from the awful sound of imminent doom.

     Once in a while I purposely played off key, the wind was still strong, but I slowed down, still quick, but not as desperate, still hitting a few off keys but getting a better rhythm going. I played like this for twenty minutes, then it got slower, sadder, but instead of an off key, I gave it a teardrop, like tears dripping down one at a time my pinky mimicked. The rain never let up, still going strong, but I slowed down to my own beat and later that night, around midnight, a large round of thunder boomed but the rain slowed drastically. The thunder was there, ferocious as can be, but it like as if the rain had been paying it no mind, instead just pouring down at its own pace, not letting itself be reeled in by the thunder that called its name.

     Eventually the thunder was so distant you could barely hear it, and soon enough it was gone. Your fingers were in pain from such a long session, you had never played the piano for this long before. It was absolutely horrible, but you know that you will never regret it, and even hope to do it again someday. Just play whatever you feel like, however you feel like, and slowly let it leak out of yourself, into the keys, and gone with the wind.

 

     It’s been three days and your sleeping schedule is shit. You’re forcing yourself to stay awake until night.

     They never arrive.

 

     Day four and they still haven’t appeared, you managed to sleep at a reasonable time last night. You realized you haven’t eaten at all the past two days and decide to make yourself something to eat, preferring not to have to lie to your friends about your eating habits.

 

     They’re here, oh my god they’re here. What do I do? Act natural? How’s my hair? Did I remember to brush my teeth, what if they need a place to stay? I don’t even have a couch in the living room yet. What have I been doing this entire time?

 

     “Where’s John?” You hear a deep voice ask, Dave. You peek around the corner, his back turned to you. Everyone has met up in Can Town. Apparently Rose’s group had met Dave’s along the way and decided to return together. Jake, Dirk, and Jane had apparently been here since yesterday, Only Nepeta’s group knew.

     Everyone is here and you are so fucking overwhelmed, you almost turn around to go back home before a hand is perched on your shoulder and you look behind you.

     “Dad.” You murmur. He smiles at you and you almost tear up because he gives you a big hug and almost blows away all of your anxieties and fear.

     “I am so proud of you.” He whispers and you hug him back, never again will you take those words for granted. “We missed you John. Welcome back.” I squeezed him hard. He’s making it sound like you went out on a journey all by yourself and just came home like everyone else. When in reality you stayed behind and just built a house. “Welcome home.”

     He let me go and led me to everyone else with a firm, reassuring grip on my shoulder. Everyone’s eyes were on me and Dave, his back still turned to me, noticed the look on everyone’s faces and turned around to see me. He smiled and we ran up to each other meeting with a bone crushing hug.

     “Hey Egderp. I’m back.” Dave grinned.

     “Welcome home.” I replied. Rose stepped up.

     “We missed you.” Rose joined in on the hug.

     “I missed you guys too.” Everyone joined in on the hug.

 

     Home.

     You never thought you’d ever be able to relate to that word again.

     You’re the same person you always have been. John Egbert, 21, born in Washington state on April 13th, son of Dad Egbert who is still with you even through that entire game.

     You are John Egbert, and you are finally home.


End file.
